There is a new single-cup brewer getting ready to hit the market from our friends and partners at Marco Beverage Systems. We covered its mighty debut back in 2013 at HOST Milan, which is like a biannual E3 of coffee technologies, at which point the project was called the Splurty. This plucky little so-and-so wound up stealing the show, capturing the imagination of our readers around the world and generally making quite a Splurty splash. What’s it do? It brews a fine, stable filter coffee utilizing Marco’s undercounter energy-efficient Über Boiler, and gets along well with a variety of brew vessels, from Kalita to Chemex.
Working titles and code names are common practice for new technologies; your Apple iPhone was once the M68, and the Xbox 360 was originally called “The Xenon”. As progress was made and Splurty came closer to reaching market, word came that Marco had given Splurty a new moniker going forward. Splurty was no more; the device was now to be called the FAZE9 brewer. We eulogized poor Splurty as the news broke, did our best to contextualize the news with our ongoing excitement for the device itself. From our name change article last February:
“Whither, young Splurty, wrested from us too soon, having Splurted its last, each Splurt a primal wail against the darkness, and yet, born anew for greater things.”
We thought Splurty was gone forever, but like a telenovela soap opera priest or a professional wrestling bad guy, death was but a commercial break. News came in to Sprudge HQ this morning that Splurty’s back and ready to rumble, re-born anew as the Marco SP9. It appears that there was something of a public outcry surrounding the name change to FAZE9, as Marco Commercial Director James Healy explained to us via email [emphasis ours]:
“The coffee community that has been familiar with the project name “Splurty” [has] been pleading with us to retain the name. As Commercial Director for Marco it is my privilege to travel the world and to interact with a wide cross section of interesting people with the coffee industry. Since the launch of FAZE9 we have seen a huge amount of excitement and goodwill from many people in anticipation of what we were doing. However, it has come as a surprise how many people were attached to the prototype name “Splurty”, which was the forerunner of FAZE9. As such I feel that a nod to the hard work and dedication that went into moulding “Splurty” into such an amazing product is in order. We have listened to suggestions and agreed on a compromise whereby FAZE9 will be called SP9 from now on. We hope that will please the community and we look forward to seeing many of them at SCAA where SP9 will take its formal bow.”
So to summarize: The Splurty prototype debuts at HOST 2013 and people go bananas. Marco understandably enjoys the excitement, but figure a more professional brand name would suit the final product, and so as Splurty prepares to go to market, they rename the product FAZE9. Public outcry is immediate and intense, because lo and behold, you bunch of weirdos really, really like the name Splurty. So now, as the device gets set to take a formal bow at the SCAA Event next month, the name of the project has been officially changed one last time to SP9.
Anne Lunnel (right) bravely watches the Splurty brew, seen here with Ben Kaminsky (at left) at Host (via Sprudge)
The “SP” part of “SP9” stands for Splurty. This amounts to tacit approval for you to continue to call the product “the Splurty” from now until the end of time. Get your Splurt on, is what we’re saying; Splurt all over the SCAA Event show floor, install a Splurty into your cafe, and heck, if you’re a wealthy at-home Splurting enthusiast, purchase a Splurty and an Über Boiler for your kitchen, so you can Splurt comfortably from the privacy of your own home. The Splurty is dead; long live the Splurtastic new SP9.
Get your hands on the SP9 at Marco’s SCAA Event booth, meet the new Marco USA distribution team, and make as many Splurty jokes as you can possibly think of between now and April 9th. You’ve come a long way, Splurty. Onward, SP9.
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